After months of public anticipation [really?], President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) have settled on a date to play golf together: Saturday, June 18....

Boehner is widely considered the much better player, having started playing when he was in his 20s. Later in life, as a successful businessman, he joined Wetherington Golf and Country Club outside Cincinnati. Obama didn`t really become a regular player until he became president, when he started using golf outings to maintain a level of normalcy to escape the intense life inside the presidential bubble. Of late, however, Obama has been improving his game as Boehner`s has deteriorated.

According to Golf Digest, Obama is now a 17-handicap. That means that he usually shoots about a 90 on a course with an overall par of 72.

Not really. Handicaps are calculated, or at least they were 17 years ago when I wrote an article for Golf magazine on them, using only the better half of your last 20 rounds. And the handicap makes up only a majority of the gap (85%?) — the idea is that the lower handicap golfer should win the majority of bets (because he`s better), but at least it should be interesting.

If somebody lists their handicap without a decimal point, they probably don`t maintain an actual handicap.

Boehner`s handicap has drifted up from about 5 or 6, before he became the GOP leader in 2007, to an 8.5, according to an official handicap site. Boehner has not broken 80 at his home course, Wetherington, since last May - at which point his campaign for Republicans to win the majority in the November midterms shifted into high gear.

That`s a lot. Considering that the guy lives in Washington and Ohio, that means about four months of the year are too cold for golf, and it rains a lot the rest of the year, so he must have been playing golf over half the days when the weather is reasonable. I`m glad he`s got a job that`s not too demanding.

Guys always tell you that you should play golf to become rich and powerful, but my sneaking suspicion is that a lot of guys become rich and powerful in order to play more golf.